There are a lot of popular podcasters and bestselling authors offering men advice on how to live a more fulfilling life. The lineup includes Jordan Peterson (the "crisis of masculinity" psychologist), Tim Ferriss (on efficiency and psychedelics), Joe Rogan (as a pot-smoking, comedic everyman), and, of course, Jocko. They may all regularly ruminate on what it means to be a modern man, but only one is a retired Navy SEAL and the clear bet in a fight.
Jocko is the warrior sage. At age 48, he provides the stern encouragement and blunt advice many of us never received from our fathers. The world is nuanced and confusing. A lot of people are looking for a successful, healthy, happy life, but what exactly constitutes a good man is more complicated than ever. Jocko seems to simplify everything. Listen to him for long enough, and youre likely to hear guidance on every aspect of life, from work habits to workout regimens to relationship advice. As technology offers us the chance to binge-watch television while someone delivers food to our door, Jocko tells us to live a more meaningful existence.
Being physical is part of the point. Thats how I ended up sprawled on the padded mats inside a field house at a luxury summer camp in rural Maine. Jocko has the broad shoulders and chest of a comic-book hero and an appropriately square jaw to match. Conversely, Im in my late 30s with the physique of someone who interviews people and writes for a living. And while Jocko is a black-belt practitioner of jujitsu whos trained consistently for more than 20 years, at this point I had been taking jujitsu lessons for exactly a day and a half.
A few people Id met over the previous two days had come to the field house to watch. As Jocko flipped me and swept me and maneuvered me at will, I felt absolutely helpless.
If youve never heard of Jockowell, lets start with the fact that he wakes up around 4:30 a.m. just about every day and posts a photo of his watch to Twitter with motivational messages like ITS ON and ANNIHILATE THIS WEEK and The Path is the only way to get where you are going. STAY ON IT. His books break down approaches to leadership that apply to both the battlefield and the boardroom.
His weekly podcast, simply dubbed Jocko Podcast, consists of hours-long discussions about topics that range from modern warfare tactics to diet and workout strategies to the literary stylings of William Shakespeare and Cormac McCarthy. (Jocko was an English major in college. Its not rare for him to reference Blood Meridian.) He espouses axioms like Discipline Equals Freedom and All Your Excuses Are Liesall about the infinite rewards of well-flexed willpower.
Through this, Jocko has built a considerable fanbase. He's a first-name famous lifestyle guru to millions of people who buy his books and listen to his podcast. Many of those fans also buy his supplements and branded clothing. And about 450 of the most devoted attend this annual jujitsu camp with him in Maine. People from all walks of American life pay $1,000 each for a three-day sessionor $1,700 for six daysto sleep in cabins, eat camp food, and train for several hours a day with Jocko and an entire team of black-belt instructors.
Ive read Jockos books and listened to his podcast. Like a lot of Americans, I could definitely use more discipline in my life. When I emailed the camp organizers and told them I was interested in writing a story about the gathering, I wasnt expecting to participate. Id never done jujitsu in my life. (The closest I came was a year and a half of judo lessons starting when I was eight.)
Jocko encouraged me to gain some personal perspective. So there I was, tumbling through the air over and over, never completely sure where I was going to land or what Id be looking at next.
I WASN'T ON this adventure alone. As soon as I arrived, I met Pete Roberts, Jocko's business partner at Origin, the Maine-based gi-manufacturing company that hosts the camp. Pete is 40-years old with a shaved head and 250 or so pounds poured over a six-foot-five frame. (He was a tight end at the University of Maine.) He gave me a crisp, new white gi and pointed me to my cabin. When I told him I was nervoususually my reporting involves taking notes, not jostling on the ground with strangersPete gave me a sweaty hug and assured me that the jujitsu community is like one big family.
Sure enough, at lunch on the first afternoon, I met Jesse Beddingfield, a 41-year-old single father from Hendersonville, North Carolina who owns a plumbing company. He sported a long Viking beard, wore an Iron Maiden compression shirt that stretched across his barrel chest, and was eating a thick roast-beef sandwich. Jesse told me that, like a lot of the campers, he listens to Jocko Podcast among plenty others that have set him on an utterly un-self-conscious journey toward self-improvement.
Hed been doing jujitsu for about eight months, not including the time he took off with a horrific-sounding groin injury that he got while training.
Next I met Andrey Koltsov, who was about to turn 24. The camp was his birthday present to himself. Born in Belarus, Andrey grew up in New York and works in IT in the financial district. He started jujitsu about a year ago after hearing about it on his favorite podcasts. He also competes in rucking eventscarrying backpacks loaded with weights over long distancesand has no apparent body fat.
I really want to see what I can accomplish with my time on this planet, he told me. What can I be?
Most of the campers were men, but there were at least a dozen women. And a few couples, like Eddie and Tami Nantz, lean vegetarians in their 40s who'd arrived from Indiana. Their seven-year-old son trains, too, although the camp doesnt have a childrens componentyet. This trip was part of their anniversary gift to each other, so theyd arranged a private cabin.
We'd all signed up to study the austere art of controlled aggression in a place formally known as Camp Laurel. Its 160-acre campus is located deep in the forest with dozens of red wooden cabins, pristine tennis and basketball courts, and an equestrian center situated around a placid lake.
The first evening, there was a two-hour training session. When the white belts were told to partner off, I paired up with Jesse. Then a team of instructors showed us a few different guard escapestechniques to help neutralize an opponents legs when grapplingand then each pair took turns trying to replicate what wed been shown.
Jesse was gentle and patient as we took turns wrapping our legs around each others waists. Its only weird if you make eye contact, he joked.
JOCKO GREW UP in small-town New England and from the moment he learned the job existed, he wanted to be a commando. He joined the Navy straight out of high school in 1990, discovered jujitsu shortly thereafter, and eventually served eight years on active duty as an enlisted Navy SEAL.
While in the Navy, he also earned an English degree from the University of San Diego. He deployed to the Iraqi town of Ramadi in 2006 with SEAL Team Three as commander of Task Unit Bruiser, which included American Sniper Chris Kyle. Jocko was honored with both a Silver Star and a Bronze Star for his service.
When he retired from the Navy in 2010, Jocko co-founded Echelon Front, a management-consulting firm, alongside another retired SEAL named Leif Babin. Over the past decade, the duo have built their own small business empire. In 2015, Jocko and Leif wrote Extreme Ownership, a best-selling leadership manual full of lessons from war that might also apply in business. They followed that up with the 2018 book Dichotomy of Leadership, explaining the balances required in so many parts of life.
There are also "field manuals" designed to share more life-conquering pragmatic skills. And Jocko has written four childrens books, starting with Way of the Warrior Kid, which chronicles a wimpy fifth graders transition into a strong, healthy, disciplined young man. (The Nantzes' son reads them voraciously.)
Jocko Podcast averages over a million downloads a week. That helps move T-shirts with his famous taglineDISCIPLINE EQUALS FREEDOM" (one of several phrases hes trademarked). He also sells a line of caffeinated teas and naturally-sweetened energy drinks, and a series of branded supplements. And a spoken-word album of short motivational speeches. And hes part owner of an MMA gym called Victory, in his hometown of San Diego.
Much of whats taught in MMA gyms in America is Brazilian jujitsu, a specific adaptation developed over the past century that emphasizes ground fighting and the ability to use leverage to defeat an opponent who may be bigger and stronger. The combat-based art originally started in Japan around 500 years ago as a close-combat technique that combined a variety of grappling approaches, including throws, holds, traps, and joint locks.
For Jocko, jujitsu is also one big metaphor for life. Its merits echo throughout all of his work.
Jujitsu is a simple, straight-forward practical representation of the Way, he says in a promotional video for the camp. It has offense. It has defense. It has flanking. It has conservation of energy. It has deception. You can use that for combat, tactical situations. You can also use it in business. You can use it in interactions with other human beings.
I KNOW IT sounds like a clich, but on the second day I woke up sore in places Id never felt before: the muscles on the outsides of my hips, the insides of my armpits, the area where my groin meets my quads.
Jocko and Echo Charles, his co-host on the podcast, taught the first white-belt class of the day. Echo, who looks like he could be an NFL linebacker, explained the basic concepts of Brazilian jujitsu as people jotted notes or took out their smartphones to record.
Jujitsu is fighting, he said in a calm, soft voice. When I fight this guy, I want to win. The first goal of jujitsu, if youre fighting a guy, is to bring him to the ground.
Using Jocko as his hypothetical opponent, Echo went through the fundamental offensive positions once someone is on the ground: Mount, when youre on top of your opponent, straddling the chest; Side Mount, when youre perpendicular to your opponent, pinning from the side; and the Back, when youre controlling your opponent from behind. In this position, you can have full control of someone, and that person cant even see you.
If Mount is like the golden castle of positions, Echo said, the Back is the diamond room inside that castle."
The white belts laughed. Jocko, still seated on the mat, smiled and shook his head. Part of his allure is that he generally remains ultraserious; so when hes imparting wisdom, it's impossible to tell if he's also messing with you.
I was going to tell you that human beings are predatory animals, Jocko deadpanned. Thats why we have eyes in the front of our heads. Thats why we can attack forward. Thats why our arms go forward. Because were predatory animals that are meant to stalk and kill.
He paused. Or its the golden room with the diamond.
When we paired off, I drilled with Jesse again. Jocko walked around the mats, observing. His tattered, faded black belt rested loosely at his waist. At one point, I was struggling with shrimping, a basic escape maneuver. Jocko got down on the mat and demonstrated it for us totally solo, as though countering an invisible opponent.
After sparring, many of us seemed open to new tests. During the day, some people would meet behind the cafeteria and plunge into ice baths to practice calming breathing exercises. At night, some campers sat on the docks to stare up at the starry sky while performing Wim Hof meditations, which to the untrained practitioner (that would be me) seems a lot like hyperventilating until you hallucinate.
During one break, Pete and Jocko offered campers a tour of the Origin factory, located in a sprawling warehouse in nearby Farmington. Two years ago, when Jocko first visited the factory, he stood next to the giant American flag on the wall and stared at the mostly empty factory floor. Jocko and Pete, Origin's founder, shared a vision, though: a fleet of factories paying fair wages across the country, making everything from gis to jeans, hoodies and leather boots.
So far theres just one, but its running at full throttle. A factory wall now features a poster of George Washington wearing an Origin gi while riding a massive rattlesnake. Jockos grand plans to remake America dont end with manufacturing either. He told me he'd one day like to open his own school of new fundamentals, where students are taught everything from literature and American history to jujitsu and basic car maintenance.
I DIDN'T HAVE the guts to ask anyone to actually spar with me because I didnt want to accidentally hurt them with my uncoordinated flailing. But the more I trained, the more I began to understand how jujitsu is sort of a mental competition. More than a few people compared it to chess. The infinitely changing puzzle of move and counter-move is what makes it so compelling.
I was still here as a journalist. So I asked Jocko if he could demonstrate a few of his favorite moves for some short videos. He agreed to do it after dinner one night. (I didnt eat much that evening because, I didnt want to accidentally puke on him.) Thats how I ended up in the field house, in front of a small crowd, getting thrown all over the place.
He showed me a total of seven moves, some more than once. We started with a quick, powerful hip-bump sweep; Jocko hooked my leg with his foot, then rolled me from my knees onto my back in one smooth, unstoppable motion. Then came the scissor sweep, when I could feel his legs essentially flinging me over on to the mat. It felt a little like jumping into the middle of the tea-cup ride at Disney World.
While demonstrating a hip toss and armlock, he took me from a standing position, rolled me up over his hip, then held onto my arm as I fell to the matgently locking up my elbow. Even when I knew what was coming, the gym quickly turned into a giant blur. I remember a moment when I could see my own hand swinging gracelessly through the air, extended by centrifugal force as my entire body spun sideways.
Then came a move called the helicopter arm bar. It involved Jocko putting his feet on my hips, pulling me into the air, then pulling me down into an armlock. I immediately tapped for mercy.
When it was over, I was still in one piece. The small group of campers were all incredibly jealous of my experience.
ON THE LAST morning, Jocko and Echo taught the white-belt class again. The lesson covered transitioning from a hip-bump escape (shifting someone off of you with the power of your hips) to a guillotine choke (using your arms to encircle an opponents neck) to an arm bar (a hold that hyperextends an opponents elbow). This time I drilled with Andrey, the IT worker. Three days in, I was slowly starting to understand some of the physics involved. I could see the basic elements of deception and strategy.
Jocko took a moment to address the entire group to explain his intense, enduring affinity for jujitsu. He said it's full of challenges: injuries, humbling encounters, moments of mental exhaustion, times when itd be easier to quit. Life, he explained, is the same way.
Youre gonna have ups and downs in your life. Things are gonna go wrong. Youre gonna lose business. Youre gonna lose jobs. Youre gonna break up. What you do is you keep moving forward. No matter what, you keep moving forward. He concluded: Jujitsu is representative of life. If you stay humble and you stay on the Path, you will end up achieving your goals. That will happen.
When he talks, its easy to imagine men following Jocko into battle. After dinner that last night, everyone gathered in the camps field house. We were allowed to ask Jocko, or any of the other instructors, anything. Most of the questions were questions about life disguised as questions about martial arts. One man asked Jocko how to make time to train now that hes married.
Jocko told him that life is about balance, but that he had to make it a priority. He said he used to do jujitsu with his wifeuntil she got pregnant. The crowd laughed. Jocko remained straight-faced as usual.
Jesse raised his hand and asked Jocko how to get kids to love jujitsu. Jocko told the group that hed made a mistake trying to get his own children to love it. He pushed them to compete against older, bigger kids. He wanted them to learn from losing. Eventually, he said it was too much and he had to back off and change the priority on the jujitsu mats.
You know whats fun? Jocko asked. Winning is fun. He turned back to Jesse. Youve got to make it fun.
Pete opened the floor up to whoever wanted to roll. Everyone got a chance to grapple with the masters to gain their own lessons on the craft. Then suddenly it felt like, well, the last day of camp. In the middle of the field house, there was a line to take selfies with Jocko. Plenty of people made promises to see each other again next year.
I said goodbye to Jesse and Andrey and the Nantzes. Several times I was asked, Did you catch the bug? I told them the truth: Id already started researching jujitsu gyms in my neighborhood.
Around midnight, most of the campers had migrated across the campus, over to the cafeteria for some late-night snacks. Pete eventually pulled out a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle he bought at a charity auction. There were toasts. After most people went to bed, about ten of us headed to the lake, under that bright canopy of twinkling stars.
Pete was there, still sharing small swigs from his bottle. Jocko was there, even though the time was quickly approaching when hed usually post his morning watch photo. He wanted to stay, but he had to catch a flight to wherever he was heading next.
The rest of us stuck around, talking. About jujitsu, and its power to unite people and shape lives. About life in general and what we are supposed to expect from ourselves. How do you balance the professional and personal? How do you balance living in the moment and doing enough to prepare for future moments?
The more we talked, the later it got, the more we felt like maybe we just might figure everything out. Like we might finally divine the solutions to some of the intertwining riddles life presents. After a few days at camp, thats how it seemed, like we were right on the verge of some much deeper understanding.
The next step at least looked clear: more jujitsu.